In the banter of Hollywood, it was easy to dismiss Steven Seagal's current hit "Under Siege" even before it opened. Cynics called it " 'Die Hard' on a boat." The allusion was to the action hits starring Bruce Willis that have been notable for their spectacular effects and explosions on land. But in "Under Siege," the action is transferred to a Navy battleship carrying nuclear weapons that comes under attack by a group of American terrorists.

A client of locally based Douglas Emmett Realty Advisors is acquiring the 17-story Wilshire Landmark II tower in Brentwood for between $125 million and $130 million, continuing the noteworthy recent string of Westside office building sales, sources familiar with the deal said. The sale of the 373,000-square-foot high-rise, expected to close this week, is the latest acquisition involving a high-profile office building in the fast-recovering Westside market.

Snow on the East Coast put a dent in the domestic opening of "Avatar" but wasn't enough to keep the hugely expensive movie from the global launch it needed. The 3-D epic from director James Cameron, which cost $430 million to make and market, launched with a studio-estimated $232.2 million in worldwide ticket sales. It was the biggest debut ever for a movie that wasn't a sequel. In the U.S. and Canada, bad weather limited the haul for the film to a solid but far from spectacular $73 million.

A three-story office building in Santa Ana sold last week for just $32 a square foot, one of the lowest prices paid for premium office space in central Orange County in years. HUIS (USA) Ltd., a construction and design company that is based in Hong Kong and has its U.S. headquarters in Pasadena, bought the 42,744-square-foot building at 230 Golden Circle Drive for $1.38 million from the Resolution Trust Corp., the federal agency charged with selling the assets of troubled thrifts.

The question "Are people ready to go back to the movies and, if so, what do they want to see?" was partially answered over the weekend as attendance figures rebounded and audiences responded to a variety of subject matter. Ticket sales for the top 12 films were up a sharp 25% from the same weekend last year.

The posh corporate compound in the heart of Beverly Hills that once served as the headquarters for Global Crossing Ltd. and Chairman Gary Winnick has been put up for sale or lease in the wake of the telecommunication company's filing for bankruptcy protection this year. No sales price or leasing rates have been established for the 2.5-acre property on Santa Monica Boulevard and North Crescent Drive.

Thanks to the swan song of a boy wizard and encores by alien robots and pirates, Hollywood dug itself out of a big hole this summer. But it still has a ways to go to reach the surface. With the year's most popular moviegoing season coming to an end, total box-office receipts in the U.S. and Canada are on track to finish up 3.5% from last summer, according to Hollywood.com. Attendance — the number of tickets sold — will climb a little more than 1% for the season, the first rise since 2007.

Even with "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and "Monsters, Inc." packing theaters, ticket sales for the five-day Thanksgiving holiday ran an estimated 13% behind last year's record-setting pace, according to the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. The reason: Of the three films that debuted, only the espionage tale "Spy Game," starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt, managed to makes its presence felt, collecting an estimated $30.5 million in its first five days in 2,770 theaters.